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THE NEW COLUMBUS 



BY 



HENRY P. BIGGAR 



Reprinted from the Annual Report of the American Historical Association 
for 1912, pages 95-104 




WASmNQTON 
1014 



THE NEW COLUMBUS 



BY 



HENRY P. BIGGAR 



Reprinted from the Annual Report of the American Historical Association 
for 1912, pages 95-104 




WASHINGTON 
1914 



t- \ \ \ 



■;;; 



o; OF n. 

SEP 17 If14 



Y. THE NEW COLUMBUS. 



By HENRY P. BIGGAR, 

of London. 



95 



Ii 



THE NEW COLUMBUS. 



By Henry P. Biggar. 



If it be true, as Alexander von Humboldt has stated, that the 
biography of a man of learning is to be found in his works, equally 
certain is it that the life of a man of action is to be sought in his 
deeds. Christopher Columbus in the year 1492 discovered the New 
World, afterwards called America, and, whether he achieved this 
result by accident or of fixed purpose, thereby gained immortality. 
Yet as the full hfe of to-day with its ammation and its color is re- 
flected to-morrow merely in the stray hfeless papers that by chance 
escape destruction, so the story of Columbus's achievement has been 
handed down to posterity in a fragmentary form. Apart from the 
official papers drawn up before Columbus set sail, we have only the 
extracts of the Journal of his first voyage copied by Las Casas and 
two letters despatched by Columbus to friends on his return. The 
biography of Columbus written by his son Fernando between 1533 
and 1539, the Spanish original of which has never been found, was 
first pubUshed in Itahan at Venice in 1571, when Columbus had been 
dead some 65 years, and the author of his life, 32 years. 

Although Washington Irving declared Fernando's Ufe of his father 
to be the corner-stone of American history, the late Mr. Henry Har- 
risse, whose death on May 13, 1910, is deplored by every American 
scholar, sought in 1870 to prove that this volume could not possibly 
have been written by Fernando. Mr. Henry Vignaud, formerly first 
secretary of the American Embassy in Paris, has recently attempted 
to show, not merely that this book is full of inaccuracies but that it 
is composed in large part of forged documents. Mr. Vignaud, in his 
"La Lettre et la carte de ToscaneUi" (Paris, 1901), maintained that 
the correspondence with Toscanelh preserved to us in Fernando's 
life was fabricated by Bartholomew. Mr. Vignaud has since pub- 
lished three more volumes on Columbus. In 1905 in his "fitudes 
critiques sur la vie de Colomb" he endeavored to prove both that 
the statements made by Fernando regarding his father's early life 
were incorrect and also that everything Columbus himself relates of 
his early hfe is untrue. Finally, in two bulky volumes, entitled 
"Histoire critique de la grande entreprise de Christophe Colomb" 
(Paris, 1911), Mr. Vignaud has advanced the theory that Columbus 
28333°— 14 7 ^^ 



98 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

never proposed to seek a new route to the east by way of the west; 
his object was merely the discovery of new islands in the Atlantic. 

These theories present both the character of Columbus and also 
his achievement in such a different hght from that in which these 
have hitherto been regarded that, with j^our permission, I shall en- 
deavor to sketch here this new Columbus, and in conclusion shall 
draw attention to one or two facts which would seem to miUtate 
against a very general acceptance of Mr. Vignaud's views. 

Columbus was born at Genoa in 1451. He was thus 41 years of 
age when he discovered America. There were no sailors in his 
family, nor had he any relatives of noble estate. His father was a 
weaver and gave his son but a rudimentary education at one of the 
guild schools in Genoa. Columbus never attended the University of 
Pavia. It is also improbable, as he asserts, that he took to sea at 
14 years of age. In 1470, at the age of 19, he was a wool-comber at 
Genoa, where we find him still in 1472. In 1473 he was hving in 
Savona, a suburb of Genoa, and presumably exercising the same 
profession of a weaver. 

In September, 1475, Columbus sailed to Chio, the Genoese colony 
in the Levant, on board two vessels belonging to Antonio di Negro 
and Nicola Spinola, of Genoa. Columbus's stay at Chio lasted some 
months, but early in 1476 he returned to Genoa and in the summer 
of that year set out for England in a fleet of four galleasses, three of 
which belonged to his fellow-citizens, di Negro and Spinola. On 
August 13 off Cape St. Vincent these vessels were attacked by the 
French Admiral Colombo in command of some 15 French and Por- 
tuguese ships-of-war. 

After an engagement lasting 10 hours, during which neither side 
could claim the advantage, a fire, which destroyed seven of the ves- 
sels, put an end to the fight. Fernando Columbus relates how his 
father, being a good swimmer, seized an oar and, having made his 
way safely to land, proceeded on foot to Lisbon. 

Two of the vessels belonging to di Negro and Spinola, which had 
taken refuge at Cadiz, called at Lisbon on December 12, 1476. If 
Columbus visited England it was on board these ships. He never 
sailed to Iceland in February, 1477, as he relates, but may have 
reached the Faroe Islands after touching at Bristol and Galway. 

Columbus returned to Portugal in the course of 1477 and, as his 
fellow-countrymen established in Lisbon gave him a friendly recep- 
tion, lie determined to settle there. In July, 1478, he was commi3- 
sioned by Paulo di Negro to buy a quantity of sugar at Madeira. 
Columbus made contracts for the purchase of the desired amount, 
but on the arrival of di Negro's ship at Madeira it was discovered that 
she had not brought the full purchase money, in consequence of which 



• THE NEW COLUMBUS. 99 

the bargain fell through, Columbus stated all this before a notary 
at Genoa in August of the following year, 1479. He added that he 
was then 27 years of age, had 100 florins in his pocket, and intended 
on the following day to return to Lisbon. 

In that city it was that about this time he married Felipa Moniz, 
daughter of Bartholomew Perestrello, formerly governor of the island 
of Porto Santo. Columbus can not have Uved on this island with 
his mother-in-law, for she resided in Lisbon. It is also impossible 
for her to have handed over to her son-in-law the papers and geo- 
graphical notes of her dead husband, for, according to Mr. Vignaud, 
Perestrello never was a sailor. 

As these notes are supposed to have given to Columbus his first idea 
of a search for land in the west, the correspondence with Toscanelli 
can only have taken place after Columbus's marriage in 1480 and 
before the death of Toscanelli at Florence in May, 1482. ^Ir. Vig- 
naud, however, pronounces all these ToscanelU letters to be forgeries 
and sees in the Itahan text of the second letter, and the Latin and 
Spanish texts of the first letter, merely progressive drafts of one and 
the same fictitious document. In the time at our disposal it is im- 
possible to give in detail Mr. Vignaud's reasons for such a conclusion, 
but as this question is intimately bound up with that of Columbus's 
plan of the discovery of a new route to the east, on which l^Ir. Vig- 
naud has much to say that is new, we shall have occasion later to refer 
to the. origia of this correspondence. 

In this year, 1482, in wliich ToscaneUi died, the Portuguese built the 
fort of St. George de La ^lina, 5° north of the Equator. Columbus 
states that he visited this fort, but places it on the Equator. He was 
therefore a most inaccurate scientific observer. His voyages to the 
West Coast of Africa, of which he frequently makes mention, must have 
taken place between tliis year, 1482, and 1484, when, as we shall see, 
he passed into Spain. 

Columbus's conclusion from his observation of the explorations of 
the Portuguese along the coast of Africa was not, as Fernando would 
have us beUeve, that it was possible to reach the east by sailing to the 
west, but merely that since the Portuguese had found new lands by 
advancing toward the south, so it was possible other new lands might 
be discovered by sailing out into the Atlantic beyond the Cape Verde 
Islands. Accordingly, the design which Columbus laid before King 
John II of Portugal in 1483 was not that of a new route to the Spice 
Land of the east by way of the west, as has been supposed, but simply 
the discovery of new islands in the Atlantic to the west of those al- 
ready known. The attempt on the part of this king to send a caravel 
in secret to the region indicated by Columbus shows that the latter's 
idea was not the discovery of a route to the east, but merely that of 
new lands to the west of the Cape Verde Islands. 



100 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

Indignant at this behavior on the part of King John, Columbus, 
whose wife was then dead, left Lisbon secretly by sea and with his 
young son Diego sailed to Palos in Andalusia. On Ills way from Palos 
to Huelva, where lived a sister of liis dead wife, Columbus called at 
the Franciscan convent of La Rabida, One of the monks, Antonio do 
Marchena, on questioning Columbus and hearing his tale became so 
interested that ho sent him to the Duke of Medina-Sidonia at Seville. 
Unsuccessful with tliis duke, Columbus applied to the Duke of 
Medina-Celi, who considering the undertaking more suited to their 
Catholic Majesties gave him a letter to the court at Cordova. Fer- 
dinand and Isabella after their audience with Columbus in April or 
May, 1486, commanded Talavera to place the matter in the hands of 
a commission, before whom Columbus was sununoned at Salamanca 
in tho autumn of 1486. The University of Salamanca was in no way 
interested in these discussions. 

Wliile waiting for the decision of the commission, Columbus on 
August 15, 1488, became the father of a second son, Fernando Colum- 
bus, whose mother was Beatriz Euriquez de Torquemada. This 
girl, whose parents were both dead, was then some 18 or 20 years of 
age. She was in poor circumstances and may possibly have been but 
a servant in a posada at Cordova, which would explain why Columbus 
never married her. 

Although Columbus collected all available data regarding the exist- 
ence of undiscovered land in the west and consigned this to his"Livro 
de Memorias" he has nowhere made mention of the reported dis- 
covery of the Antilles by an unknown pilot of Huelva, related at 
length by Las Casas. Wliile ^Mr. Vignaud thinks it impossible to 
prove the authenticity of this tale, there are in his opinion many rea- 
sons for behoving that a pilot was actually driven by winds and cur- 
rents to one of the Antilles, and that on his death he confided the fact 
to Columbus. In no other way can one account for the firmness with 
which Columbus constantly maintained his conviction of the exist- 
ence in the west of new lands. He seemed as sure of what he as- 
serted, Las Casas tells us, as if he had already been there in person. 

In 1490, after five years' deliberation, the commissioners advised 
the rejection of Columbus's plan, which was not the discovery of a 
new route to the east by way of the west, but the same that he had laid 
before King Jolm of Portugal, namely, the discovery of new lands in 
the Atlantic to the west of the Canaries. The documents make no 
mention of any other project. 

Before offering his plan to the King of France, Columbus proceeded 
to La Rabida to bring his son Diego to Cordova. He profited by his 
return to Palos to hold frequent converse with the sailors of that 
town and also with those of Moguer and of Huelva, which latter town 
had been the home of the unknown pilot. At Palos, Columbus was 



THE NEW COLUMBUS. 101 

informed by Pedro de Velasco that, from observations made at the 
Azores, he had concluded that land must exist further to the west. 
Another pilot of Palos, Pedro Vasquez de la Frontera, told Columbus 
that he knew the very situation in the Atlantic, beyond the great 
Sargasso Sea, of the Indies themselves. In this man's house Colum- 
bus met Martin Alonzo Pinzon, who had just returned from Rome, 
where in the pope's library he had seen a mappemonde on which lands 
were depicted in the west at a distance to which hitherto no sailor 
had penetrated. 

This new and valuable information induced Juan Perez of La 
Rabida to demand an audience of Isabella and the latter to agree to 
receive Columbus again. The conditions demanded by the latter 
were, however, so exorbitant as to prove a fresh stumbling block. 
Finally, Luis de Santangel succeeded in inducing the Queen to accept 
them. Mr. Vignaud is the first to point out that in some copies of 
this agreement with Columbus the privileges granted are motived, 
not by what Columbus was to discover, but according to the best 
texts "as some satisfaction for what he lias discovered." Nowhere in 
this agreement, however, can a single reference be found to the idea of 
a new route to the east by way of the west. Colimibus simply pro- 
posed to discover new lands in the Atlantic. 

Amid the difficulties of fitting out the ships at Palos, the interven- 
tion of the Pinzons saved the situation. In Mr. Vignaud's opinion, 
however, Martin Pinzon alone would not have discovered America. 
On the other hand, Columbus would never have been able to carry out 
his plan, at any rate in Spain, without the acti^'e cooperation of this 
helpful lieutenant. 

According to the mstructions given by Columbus to his captains, the 
flotnia was to sail west from the Canaries for some 700 leagues, at 
which point he instructed them always to shorten sail between 
midnight and dawn. Columbus also gave the crews to understand 
that at this point land would be reached. It was because no land was 
seen after they had gone this distance that on October 3 the men 
began to show signs of mutiny. Here again Cohmibus had to rely 
on the help of Martin Pinzon. "Hang some of the mutineers," he 
called out to Columbus. "If you are afraid," said he, "my brothers 
and I will come aboard and do it for you." Pinzon declared, indeed, 
that he would never return to Palos without first running his prow 
upon the shore of the land of which they were in search. 

On October 6, when they had already sailed the distance fixed by 
Columbus and found no land, Pinzon proposed that they should steer 
more to the southwest, in order to reach Cipangu, of which he had 
heard at Rome. The next day Columbus agreed to this course, with 
the result that on October 12 they sighted the island of San Salvador, 
some 1,100 leagues to the west of the Canaries. Mr, Vignaud thinks 



102 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

that a great change now took place in Columbus's mind. Since they 
had sailed over 350 leagues beyond the point at which he expected 
to find land, Columbus concluded that he had penetrated to the out- 
skirts of Asia. Cuba, which was sighted on October 28, was in conse- 
quence of this held to be the Asiatic mainland. On December 6 they 
discovered the island of Haiti, which both Columbus and Pinzon 
decided must be Cipangu. 

On his return Columbus declared that he had found the Indies, 
to which point it had always been his intention to make his way. 
Although at first Ferdinand and Isabella accepted this statement, 
and m their letters described the new islands as being "in the 
Indies," the expression used in the official documents some two 
months later is "in the parts of the Indies," which expression, in Mr. 
Vignaud's opinion, shows that a doubt had arisen in their minds 
whether the new islands reaUy were India. This doubt m time became 
general. Thus La Cosa, Cantino, and Canerio in their maps did not 
include the islands discovered by Columbus with the Indies, and Peter 
Martyr went even so far as to call Columbus the discoverer of a "new 
world." Agam, had Columbus's statement that these new lands were 
India met with general acceptance, some trace would be found of the 
astonishment experienced when it was discovered that the new lands 
were not reaUy India. Mr. Vignaud can find in the records no trace 
of the expression of any such surprise. ) 

As the world persisted therefore in beheving not only that Colum- 
bus had not discovered India, but also that he had never intended 
to do so, Columbus felt it incumbent upon himself to show that it 
had always been his intention to sail to the East. In his letters of 
1498, and in that of 1503 written from Jamaica, he developed a new 
cosmographical system which he took from Martin Behaim whom he 
had met m 1491 and 1492. 

As, however, on Columbus's death in 1506 the world was still 
unconvinced that he had intended to sail to the East, his brother 
Bartholomew, to save the memory of Columbus from the unjust 
aspersions cast upon it by those who persisted in relating the story of 
the anonymous pilot, had recourse to an heroic solution. He forged 
the whole correspondence with ToscaneUi in order to prove^ that 
Columbus had always had in mind the discovery of a new route to the 
east. Fernando Columbus found these fictitious documents among 
his Lmcle Bartholomew's papers, and in this way they came into the 
hands of Las Casas, who believed them to be authentic. Mr. Vig- 
naud's conclusion thus is, that while Columbus displayed genius in 
the faculty with which he sifted the evidence regarding the existence 
of land in the west, his real merit will always lie in this, that he dis- 
covered America not in seeking for the east by way of the west, but 
because he deliberately set out to find America. 



THE NEW COLUMBUS. 103 

1 

In conclusion one can but call attention to a few facts which would 
seem to militate against a very general acceptance of Mr. Vignaud's 
views. If it be true as he has stated that there is not a single con- 
temporary reference to Columbus's correspondence with Toscanelli, 
equally certain it is that in June, 1494, the Duke of Ferrara wrote to his 
ambassador in Florence requesting hun to inquire of Toscanelli's 
nephew, who had inherited his uncle's papers, whether this nephew 
would be good enough to send the duke a copy of some notes, which he 
understood Toscanelli had written, regarding the island recently dis- 
covered by the Spaniards. 

And as to the real nature of Columbus's project, we know that 
what he proposed to Eang John of Portugal was a search for the 
island Cipangu, and Barros tells us that when Columbus returned 
from his first voyage, he declared at Lisbon that this was the island 
he had actually discovered. Since Columbus knew from the travels 
of Marco Polo, which he had read, that Cipangu lay some, 1,500 miles 
off the coast of Asia, it would seem clear that Columbus's original 
intention must have been to sail to the East across the western ocean. 

In proof of this we have the text of the letter of credence given to 
Columbus by Queen Isabella on April 30, 1492. Although the name 
of the prince to whom this letter was to be delivered is therein not 
given, Columbus in his Journal under October 23, states that this 
prince was the Grand Khan of Cathay. This is further apparent 
from the statement of Queen Isabella in this letter that "from the 
reports of some of our subjects, and others who have come to us 
from your Kingdoms and Countries, we have learned with joy, with 
what good feelings you are animated toward us and our State." 
Such a remark could never apply to the ruler of an undiscovered 
island in the Atlantic, but is in keeping with the supposition that 
this letter was intended for the Khan of Cathay, Finally, we have 
Columbus's introduction to the above-mentioned Journal of his first 
voyage, and with the first few sentences of- this important document 
we must bring this paper to an end: 

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. WTiereas, most Christian, most high, most 
excellent, and most powerful Princes, King and Queen of the Spains, in the present 
year of 1492 in consequence of the information which I had given to your Highnesses 
of the lands of India, and of a Prince who is called the Grand Khan, how that many 
times he and his predecessors had sent to Rome to entreat for Doctors of our Holy 
Faith, to instruct him in the same, and that the Holy Father never had provided him 
with them, and that so many people were lost, believing in idolatries, and imbibing 
doctrines of perdition, therefore, your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians and Princes, 
Lovers, and promoters of the Holy Christian Faith, determined to send me, Christopher 
Columbus to the said parts of India to see the said Princes and people and land, and 
discover the nature and disposition of them all, and the means to be taken for the 
conversion of them to our Holy Faith, and ordered that I should not go to the East 
by land by which it is the custom to go, but by a voyage to the West, by which course 
unto the present time we do not know for certain that anyone hath passed, Yoxir 



\ 



104 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

i ^ 

Highneseea therefore, after having expelled all the Jews from your Kingdom and 
Territories, commanded me in the same month of January to proceed with sufficient 
armament to the said parta of India. I departed therefore from the City of Granada 
on Saturday, May 12, 1492, to Palos, a seaport, where I armed three ships well calcu- 
lated for such service, and sailed from that port well furnished with provisions on 
Friday, August 3 of the same year, half an hour before sunrise, and took the route for 
the Canary islands of Your Highnesses to steer my course thence and navigate until 
I should arrive at the Indies and deliver the Embassy of your Highnesses to those 
Princes. 

These words, which Mr. Vignaud is obliged to declare apocryphal, 
though originally written for the edification and information of 
Ferdinand and Isabella, would seem to place beyond the shadow of 
a doubt the fact hitherto undisputed that Columbus discovered 
America merely by accident in sailing across the western ocean on a 
voyage to the East Indies. 



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